


Timbre

by shatterthefragments



Series: Musician Sam [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Bass - Freeform, Gen, Musician Sam, Stand-up Bass, String Bass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:44:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2679602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatterthefragments/pseuds/shatterthefragments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a reward piece for myself. I got 10/10 on a quiz tonight and I felt like rewarding myself by typing this up even though I'm super tired and my eyes are super, super tired, and I'm unable to edit this piece and probably won't until I'm not so busy. Hopefully, there aren't many mistakes in here in the first place.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Timbre

**Author's Note:**

> This is a reward piece for myself. I got 10/10 on a quiz tonight and I felt like rewarding myself by typing this up even though I'm super tired and my eyes are super, super tired, and I'm unable to edit this piece and probably won't until I'm not so busy. Hopefully, there aren't many mistakes in here in the first place.

Sam's eyes flutter closed when he drags the hairs of his bow across the strings of his bass, listening carefully for any fluctuations in the tone and which pitch it is.

He fiddles around with the tuning pegs for each of the four strings until he finally deems everything to be good.

Most people get fed up with how you have to tune a bass before you play it, every single time, but Sam has always viewed it as part of the experience of playing the instrument that he does.

But it's so pleasing to Sam to hear the rich, deep, timbre of the bass resonate through the room.

Any person who'd pass by would see the length of what most call the "Stabby Thing of Doom" and the ribbon that ties the man's hair back, but you have to look a bit closer in order to see the utterly relaxed way Sam holds the body of the bass and the bow... like lovers entirely in synchrony with each other. You'd have to look closer to see the way Sam is completely at peace with everything in there, how calm and content he is to have his instrument and music with him.

When Sam plays, his legs are splayed around the body of his bass, just a soft caress from his thighs keeping it firmly in place while his torso was often bending over to get the higher notes which required him to move his fingers to the bottom of the neck and then bending back to reach the middle or top where the positions for mid to lower notes are.

* * *

 

His music is perched upon a simple stand that Dean made for him years back in metal shop. It stands sturdy on the ground with a semi-adjustable height, luckily, Sam plays either standing or on a tall stool, so it doesn't make too much of a difference either way. The part where his music rests isn't some fancy affair with cutout scrolls and delicate filigree, but a plain backing - black, like the rest of the metal, with an indented part in the middle where the fold of his folder can stay comfortably.

It was the best thing Dean had ever thrown at him from his shop classes. Sam had thanked him over and over for months, determined to find some way to find a gift just as awesome for him. Dean had just ruffled his hair when he expressed this and told him to play some classic rock.

For Dean's birthday, Sam played without his bow in performance, for his brother, for the first time. He plucked the strings and played Stairway To Heaven. Of course, back then, there wasn't a music store with that in, and Sam didn't have the money for anything past his rosin supply and replacement hairs for his bow after an old friend of theirs gave him their old string bass, which, after a few repairs, was better quality than any of the basses that Sam could've rented... that was actually why he started learning in the first place. Anyways, the point is that Sam had to listen to the original song and transpose a version for himself to play on his own.

Although, when he first started, his arms were still tiny and he was much shorter than the bass itself. He practiced just the fingerings or bowing at first. But then he grew.

* * *

His bow glides cleanly over the strings as he plays, sometimes stopping to pluck at a string or two and fiddle with the tuning again, sometimes distorting it so it's tuned in entirely different ways than what's normal for the bass.

After an hour of him practicing, his phone rings with the receptionist at the music hall a few cities over.

Sam's been accepted as a guest judge and mentor for the Young Musicians Showcase Competition this year.

It was a competition that Sam had dreamed of competing in when he was young, but they usually only stayed in the same place for about a year and they never had the money to pay the fees of registration, let alone transporting him there and finding a temporary place just for the two weeks it spans... or the means to make an audition recording... or buying the required repertoire... It remains a disappointment to Sam that he never got to compete there, but he's elated that he gets to see other kids get excited over the music that probably feels like a home to them, as well. 

He smiles before focusing again on the music in front of him. He flips to a much happier piece, filled with joy and revelations.

He doesn't stop smiling.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I have a friend in band with me who plays this bass. None of us can ever agree on what to call it. Our current band teacher calls it the string bass. <3  
> Let me know what you thought in the comments, especially if it seemed to bounce around with topics or whatnot. I literally cannot tell right now. I also can't play my own music because everything just kind of starts to blur if I try to look at it for too long.


End file.
